


snake eyes

by hikaie



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Aftercare, Casual Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Explicit Consent, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Kink Negotiation, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pegging, Sex Work, Slut Shaming, Subspace, Tender Sex, elliott witt's emotional constipation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29823924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaie/pseuds/hikaie
Summary: Willingly submitting oneself to being broadcast across the galaxy as a posterboy for a highly popular bloodsport meant that Elliott was unfortunately rather familiar with his past coming back to bite him in the ass.
Relationships: Loba Andrade/Mirage | Elliott Witt
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	snake eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Ummm I meant to publish this last night but I couldn't focus on typing it. Luckily I got a surge of inspiration this morning and finished+polished it. Not really sure where this whole thing came from, because the initial inspiration is a Falling In Reverse song, but here we are. This is **tropey** and **indulgent** , not necessarily realistic.
> 
> So like, warnings: the implied/ref'd sexual assault is very, VERY vaguely alluded to and in the past tense. Nothing is graphically mentioned. The slut shaming tag is in reference to some internalized thoughts Elliott has. Things are very much consensual between Mirage and Loba. Heed tags and read to your comfort!
> 
> Enjoy.

Money was everything in Angel City. Money was everything everywhere, but especially here. He wondered at the amount that had to change hands for her to swipe him off his client. In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter- she clearly had whatever amount it cost to pay for his time and then some. Elliott was a good sport about it. Clients were clients.

“Do they know that you rig the games?”

That’s… not what he was expecting. He’s barely through the door in her suite, and stops short in the opulent foyer to meet her eyes. She’s standing at the top of a set of two or three tiled stairs, and the negligent height makes her feel imposing.

“Not sure what you’re talkin’ about, gorgeous.” He tries, though his blood feels like ice.

“Oh, darling. I know you know how to bluff better than that.” She steps down from the sitting room. Earlier, on the casino floor, she’d been wearing a gown that looked painted on and her hair had been swept into an intricate, braided up-do. Now she’s looking much more comfortable, if just as beautiful; her hair is hanging down around her shoulders in varying waves and curls, and she’s sporting a soft cashmere sweater that touches her thighs.

Elliott’s clients usually book him for his brattiness, but in tonight’s little trade, he’s not sure if she’s gotten the memo. Besides, he needs to take care of whatever this is before he even begins to touch on that miscommunication.

“Admitting to cheating at an Angel City casino would get me blacklisted in a heartbeat.” He smiles at her and hopes it feels as predatory as her own.

“I’m not looking to tell anyone.” Her lips lift at the corners, and she starts a slow circle around him, appraising him with her eyes and hands alike. He can’t help but shift anxiously when a manicured nail caresses the back of his neck during her inspection. “I’d like to know how you do it.”

All in, then. He’s good at that. Elliott quirks his lips up in a passable smirk when she returns to his sight, and says, “A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

“Clever.” She steps into his space and lays her hand over his zipper. “Does that include what’s under here?”

Oh, she’s good. She’s much too good. Many years later, this is one of the moments that will still be fried into his brain: the smudge of her eyeliner as she peers up at him countered by the immaculate gleam of perfectly applied lipstick, her thighs brushing against his own, her superior grin making goosebumps break out across his whole body. This doesn’t happen for him, often. A job’s a job, but hey, everyone enjoys what they do occasionally, right? Especially when they’re as good at it as he is.

“That depends.” His voice has dropped into husked arousal. She toys with the zipper pull and hums in thought.

“On?”

“What you’re… asking for, exactly.” He scrapes the top of his tongue with his teeth to stave off a stammer. “No markings, nothing unsanitary. Like uh- no blood, y’know? Or piss or whatever. I know you didn’t go through my agent, so-”

She yanks the zipper down. “You poor thing. The elite around here don’t have as much class as they claim. Let me show you _._ We’re going to have a good time, I promise.”

“Pr-promises, promises!” He holds up a hand, even though his blood is already rushing from his head to more interesting places. Surprisingly, she stops and raises her chin to show she’s listening.

“If I say no or stop those mean no or stop. Same… same goes for you, alright? Or if you want to use some other word, that’s cool too. Cap-peas- _piche_?”

Her hand clasps his cheek, so soft it almost makes him flinch. He’s… really not accustomed to this treatment. His dick is clearly not getting the picture that this is _negotiation time_ , because he’s getting embarrassingly hard already, and if she agrees and takes this stupid outfit off of him it’s going to be painfully obvious in the excuse for underwear he’s wearing.

“I’m going to take this horrible outfit off of you,” She begins, her other hand unclasping the zipper at the bottom of the jacket. “-unwrap you from whatever number you’re wearing beneath it-” He shivers when her knuckles trail up his navel. “-and then I’m going to see what this mouth is capable of rather than smarting off. How does that sound?”

“Good.” He breathes, already finding himself leaning into her touch, slipping away into familiar, fuzzy-warm territory. “Really- uh, really great.”

She’s meticulous, he learns, and she likes him behaved. It’s good that he _wants_ to behave for her. Truth is, he’s not acting for her right now, not like he does for most of his clients. She’s seemingly just as invested in his pleasure as her own. Before their mouths meet, she asks if he kisses, and though he usually _doesn’t_ , he breaks his own rule for her. It’s worth it, just to feel the tacky transfer of her lipstick start to smudge across his mouth and jaw as she peels his clothes off of him. The gaudy green coat and pants are discarded in the foyer, leaving him in only the delicate white lace he’d been sporting all night. His erection is just as embarrassingly noticeable as he’d feared.

The first time is as promised: they make it in stumbling steps through the sitting room before she decides she’s had enough and tells him _“On your back, on the floor now.”_ and he, of course, listens. He’s still straining, wet through the fabric, made more obvious when he stretches out for her. She reaches under the hem of her sweater and quickly discards her own underwear, dragging up the edge of her shirt as she straddles his face and finds out _exactly_ how good his mouth really is. Only in the aftermath, her hand pressing sweaty curls back from his face as they both heave for air, does she tell him, “I want to fuck you.”

“Yes, please.” He wheezes out, before his brain can really catch up to his tongue, and she _laughs_. It’s a bright, throaty sound.

They _do_ make it to the bed for this. She supplies him with lube and sits pretty and relaxed between his thighs, directing him with hushed words on how she wants him to open himself up for her- she can’t because of her nails, but she’s still going to have him go at her pace. It makes him burn from his scalp to his toes, this slow, directed treatment. He was used to being put in his place, not coaxed into this heady obedience. Why would he fight the way she tells him to slip another finger into his hole and stretch himself wider? Why would he deny her when she commands him to stroke himself with his other hand, nearly crying at the overwhelming pleasure it brings him?

She fucks him slow but hard, and he doesn’t even have to put on a show for her. Every moan he lets out is genuine, knocked loose from him when she bottoms out. Her hands slide over his chest reverentially, lingering caresses that drive him deeper into the lowest depths of his head. There’s a certain filthiness to it- she _wants_ him to get off. How often does that happen? He’d watched her put on the harness, knows she’s getting minimal friction at best from fucking him like this, but her face is ruddy and she hums every time he begs, and it sounds _real_. She urges him higher and higher, her nails gentle over the trembling muscles of his abs and thighs.

“Wha’s yourrr… name?” He slurs out, after a particularly delicious grind has him seeing stars. He can feel sticky trails of pre all over his stomach with the way she’s knocking him around the bed, his cock jolting with the thrusts.

“Mmm.” She adjusts his knee over her hip, and he drags his heel back to open up obediently for her. He feels the next thrust in his spine, a jolt of electricity racing from the small of his back to the nape of his neck. “Loba. And you, lovely?”

“Elliott.” He gasps it out, twisting his fingers in the soft, mussed sheets. The fabric sticks to his hands- he’s not sure if it’s cum, sweat, or both dampening his palms.

“Pretty.” A punctuating thrust makes him wail. “You’re being so good for me, Elliott. Are you having a good time?”

“Yyyy _yyyeahh- Lo-”_ He loses the second syllable of her name in a groan that comes from his gut. He’s so close, _so_ close, teetering on the edge of climax, but he can’t, not yet, not yet, he wants to ride this high for as long as she’ll give him this-

He doesn’t know he’s babbling. He’s sunken into the sheets and his headspace, only surfacing when she talks to him directly. “I promised, didn’t I?” She asks, and she sounds so out of breath, so _aroused_ just from fucking him it’s unbelievable. His stomach starts to clench, and his cock twitches in warning so he wraps his own hand around the base and whimpers.

“What’s that, darling?”

“Gonna- nnh, so close, don’t wanna-”

“Oh, we can’t have that.” She peels his fingers apart and strokes him off, and he sobs out, little _please, please, please_ ’s wheezing out of him, and when she tells him to come he _does_ , spectacularly and so hard he whites out for a moment.

They lay in bed, together, after. She allows him to hold her against his chest and run his hands through her hair, and they talk quietly. They trade cheeky remarks and secrets. They’re not so different- she’s a thief, it turns out, and a good one if her bragging is anything to go by. They order room service, and she dotes on him, feeding him from her hand and kissing him in between. He’s confused as hell, but satisfied all the same, and he likes the way she tucks her smiling face against his skin when he holds her against his body and treats her just as softly in return. They end up going again in the cavernous bathroom, the shower so large it could be its own room, her legs around _his_ waist this time and her breaths coming out of her in quiet, restrained moans.

There’s a fireplace, in the sitting room, and they rejoin on the chaise beside it, naked and twined together. He thinks she’s asleep, but then her muzzy voice rises beneath his chin, and their talk turns serious, personal. They kiss, and it doesn’t lead anywhere other than the continued warm, wet slide of their mouths together.

He should know better. He’s not _new_ at this. You don’t have any particularly strong feelings for clients, other than contempt or neutrality if they’re regulars. It’s not anything out of the ordinary to be their lover and therapist in one. But as they draw closer together throughout the night, the light drawing low behind her back, he feels something awkward worm into his chest. Something wrong for how hopeful and happy it feels.

She’s gone, when he wakes up, and while it’s normal enough, what _isn’t_ is how bereft he feels at being alone.

Does she remember him?

It’s a slow night at Paradise Lounge. Slow enough that the MRVNs have the place pretty much running like a well-oiled machine all on their own. Slow enough to give Elliott time to think. And right now his thoughts, and eyes, are trained on one Loba Andrade, taking up a corner booth all by her lonesome, talking quietly into her phone and waving off the server droids whenever they approach. Sure, he’s glad she still finds the Lounge a safe space, but it’s making shit _really_ hard for him, increasingly-so since the first time she walked into his bar.

He didn’t need _another_ thing to worry about, but it’s unfortunately not the first time one of his… _paramours_ has walked back into his life. Willingly submitting oneself to being broadcast across the galaxy as a posterboy for a highly popular bloodsport meant that Elliott was unfortunately rather familiar with his past coming back to bite him in the ass. But thus far, Loba hadn’t said a word to him edgewise to intimate that she remembered anything about their tryst all those years ago. It… almost hurts. No, it definitely hurts. She’d been one of the better ones, and from time to time he still drifted into the memory of it.

_They’d met at the craps table. She was sipping from a glass of wine- a rich red that was undoubtedly a fortune in crystal that was probably just as expensive- and she was eyeing him over the rim. He was, meanwhile, dangling off the arm of his client. Said client had a decade or two on Elliott himself, but he was loaded. He really had awful taste, though. Elliott was shifting from time to time in the gaudy streetwear the man had him decked out in; it was less about the uncomfortable fabric (though that was definitely a factor), and more about the illicit lingerie underneath. He caught her eye a second time, with his lips pursed to blow luck across the dice in his client’s hand, and this time he winked at her. She smiled, serpent-like, and his heart throbbed._

“You’ve been burning a hole in the side of my face for half an hour, Witt.”

Elliott startles out of his reverie, flinching back at Loba’s acidic tone. _Caught_.

“Spaced… spaced out.” He chuckles lightly and pastes on a smile. “How about a drink on the house, huh? You must be per-pars-pard- _thirsty_ from all that talking.”

She eyes him suspiciously while he reaches for a decent burgundy that’s already been left out to breathe for another customer. “You a wine gal?” Her mouth purses but she nods. “Thought so.”

No. No _way_ has she remembered, if he’s going to be that overt without showing his whole hand. That’s for the better, right? She can’t make a fuss out of something she doesn’t recall. And he can go ahead and quash all his feelings now, before they have time to fester any more than they already have. She’d had him, once, for exactly what she wanted, and nobody wanted used goods.

But he can’t help but fondly recall tracing her spine, nor cupping her small breasts and kissing over the pooch of her stomach and hips. She’d been responsive, sighing at every caress and blushing like they were the dirtiest things, dirtier than him soaking a wet spot through lace panties.

He had a vivid memory, okay? Sue him.

Loba taps her nails on the bartop. “When do you close?”

The question makes him pause minutely in his pour, but he barrels on and hopes she didn’t notice. “0300, standard.” Weird. She’s second only to Crypto in paranoia, why wouldn’t she know that? Aside from that, it’s just past 2300. Anyone with half a braincell would know a decent bar wouldn’t close this early.

She takes her glass with a hum. “Wonderful.” And then, once again, she leaves him to his thoughts.

At midnight, she slips out, and he tries to forget about her. He has a lot of practice. Before he knows it, he’s waving the MRVNs into the night so he can take care of closing himself. Consequently, he doesn’t slump into his apartment until almost a quarter to four.

“You were supposed to be done at three.”

He screams- loudly. Something crashes in the front room-turned-lab, followed by the door flying open, and before Ramya can join the party (and potentially fill his apartment with bullets and mayhem), he yells “Just a rat!” She yells back a choice swear and what he’s pretty sure is something derogatory in Hindi before her door slams shut once more. All the while, Loba is sitting on his couch, peering at him calmly and unaffected.

“ _Jesus_ , little warning?”

She smiles. “That would ruin the fun.”

He mutters under his breath, “You’re all insane.”

“All? Who else is sneaking into your apartment, Witt?”

He fixes her with an unimpressed look. Once he realizes she’s not going anywhere anytime soon, he shuffles across the studio and starts pulling off his Henley. “Renee, for one. Like, just because you can phase through walls doesn’t mean you should. At least knock. And _Crypto_ \- only once that I know of, said he was checking for bugs, the paranoid freak, whatever, and then Path of course because he has _no_ sense of boundaries but I guess he _is_ my bestie-” He stops short and looks over at her nervously, scratching his chest idly. Unfamiliar self-consciousness sets in at how hairy he is. _Doesn’t matter_ , he reminds himself. _She doesn’t remember_. “Revenant, I… I think. Dunno for sure, but sometimes I get this crawly feeling.”

“…One would think you’d be more used to surprises, Elliott.”

He has to look away from her, then, pulling a tank top over his head in an effort to keep his hands busy. He can’t handle her saying his first name. That crawling feeling, that skin-surface knowledge of knowing he’s being watched, doesn’t come, not even when he shucks off his jeans and searches through his dresser for sweats to replace them.

“Yup. You’d think.”

She’s quiet for a long time. Too long. He can’t think of words to fill that yawning space between them, so he flees to the bathroom to wash his face, ending up spending much too long staring at himself in the mirror. But she's still there when he exits the washroom, and she’s kicked off her heels to boot.

“Not that I don’t love a good sleepover, doll, but you’ve _gotta_ have better digs than this.”

“When did you stop escorting?”

His mouth goes dry. Mortification floods him, and he crosses his arms over his torso, as if they can provide him any armor. Right, okay. He’s done this a handful of times, just, _you can do this Witt_ -

“A… a year and a half before I joined the games, I guess.”

“Why?”

He scuffs his toe against the floor. “Why does it matter?”

“I’m just curious.”

Right. Like she’d been curious about how he was rigging games. Her curiosity really tended to stray to places it had no business going. He screws up his mouth, fighting off a grimace and frown in one motion. “I had a bad client on Dionysus, and it wasn’t really worth it after that.”

She looks at him, so utterly silent yet not without her perceptive, burglar’s eye. He doesn’t _want_ her pity, but he feels it washing over him with that expression trained on him. “It’s whatever.” He finally says, just to break the quiet. When it continues, he grows angry. “I don’t put out for money, anymore, if that’s what you’re after.” And the thing is, he doesn’t really think she is. He just doesn’t want to bring _these_ memories back up, the bad ones, would much rather recall a wonderful evening under her than the way everything had gone so horribly wrong.

Loba crosses her legs at the ankle and frowns. “Do you think so little of me?”

No. No, not really, but he can’t always help the grubby feeling that overcomes him, the remnants of too many hands, too many mouths. It’s always in a foggy corner of his brain and never quite washes off of his skin. So he plays up his vanity, and he smiles for the cameras, and flirts readily. The confidence helps. And meaningless sex to scratch an itch is one thing. He’s not returning to that life, not for all the credits in the Outlands, not even now. Not even for her, his favorite client, even after all these years.

He’s not going to be just another treasure added to her collection.

Elliott sinks onto the end of his bed, still cradling his upper body in his arms. He doesn’t know what he expected, but her actually remembering him feels sour and uncomfortable. His tongue feels like lead in his mouth, and he knows from experience that if he tries to speak, if he tries to explain where his head’s at, it’s all going to come out a jumbled, unintelligible mess.

Loba keeps the conversation going in his stead. “I kept up with you, for a while. I had my… assistant keeps tabs on you, but when you left the planet a few months later he couldn’t find you. Quite unusual, you know.”

He winces. “Not sure if that’s sweet or creepy.”

She shrugs. “I suppose you left an impression on me.” He can’t discern what her tone means; they’re really two peas in a pod, aren’t they? Lying is second nature for snakes like them. “You must have taken an unlisted ship, am I right?”

This is _not_ how he expected his night to go. He’s exhausted but wired in equal measure, some emotion he doesn’t want to name clenching his stomach into tight knots. “What about you? You were gone the next morning.”

Surprisingly, she looks at her knees. “I was very focused, then.”

“Well what about now?” What the hell did she call being in the Syndicate’s pocket and doing their dirty work? (The thing about being a flighty, presumed-to-be-brainless bartender at the center of a social hub was that gossip got handed to him on a silver platter.)

She answers him while still inspecting the weave of her slacks. “I find myself rather distracted, these days.”

He bites his tongue, resisting the urge to purr _I have that effect_. He keeps his heart firmly in his chest, under the careful cage of his arms hugged tight around his frame.

“Where did you go?” Loba tries again. He realizes she’s not going to give up, and collapses back onto his mattress.

“Home.” He murmurs. “My uncle gave me a lift offworld. I’d been having… not a great time, I guess you could say. Droz didn’t know whether to be pissed or treat me with kid gloves. I guess it helped there was a lot happening back here, so I didn’t have time to dwell. And then he left. I don’t think…” No. No, he’s not going to tell her this. She doesn’t _get_ to do this, she doesn’t _get_ to direct that pitying look at him again. Why does she need to know that uncle Droz couldn’t stand to see his baby sister in the beginnings of dementia? That he told Elliott _Sorry, kid_ , and left him with nothing more than an old scarf and his direct contact sequence in case of emergency? At the time, Elliott had thought, _what is this if not an emergency?_ But he’s used to people walking away. He’s not going to give her the satisfaction of just walking back into his life.

“You ask too many questions.” He finally says, deflating into the bed.

He hears her before he sees her, stepping up to the edge of the mattress, knee-to-knee with him. He avoids looking at her for as long as possible, but finally caves, finding her eyes much softer than before. “I thought of you often. I wanted to reach out more than I care to admit.” She touches his knee, but draws her hand away after only a moment. Instead, she rests both hands in loose fists beside his thighs.

“You’re the one who left.” He points out, going so far as to raise an accusatory finger. It sounds far rawer than he intends.

“Don’t you think it better that we meet again now?” She’s smiling, and for some reason, he has to fight one down.

“No. Yes. No! I don’t know.” He sits up, finding them almost of a height in this position, and tentatively places his hands over hers. “We kill each other.” Which is really only the tip of the fucked up iceberg, but he’s going to need to be drunk, high, or a combination of the two to admit to that. And he doesn’t do that anymore- hasn’t in years.

“I find it nice to know exactly who your friends are and how exactly they intend to kill you, for once.” Loba says it so mildly his eyes bug out a bit. This earns him a laugh. “What? You’re not the only one with a messy past, beautiful.”

He finds himself stroking his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand. “Sure, you told me some stuff, but it’s been a few years.”

Her hand slides out from underneath his, and it drives a weight down into his belly. She merely brushes his hair out of his face. “I could fill you in, if you’d let me stay.”

“Not… not that that doesn’t sound great, but… s’kinda 4am.” Is what he says, instead of, _how can I trust that? How can I trust you?_

But she calls his bluff, just like when he’d walked into her room after cheating her out of her money. “I’ll still be here in the morning, Elliott.”

He doesn’t bother to hide his skepticism anymore. “Will you?”

Loba flinches. “Yes, of course.”

“Okay.” He’s so good at making mistakes when he doesn’t want to, and he really hopes this isn’t one. He puts his hands on her hips. “Alright, you can tell me over breakfast, then.”

“In bed?” She teases, and it goes right to his chest. She’s like a whole different person, soft and open.

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

She breaks away to undress for bed, stepping back over to his couch to neatly fold her blouse and pants. He frowns at the shapewear she’s left in, as well as the angry pressure marks left on her skin from long and repeated corset use. She doesn’t see it, though. Loba peels down the shapewear, too, tucking it under her shirt, and returns to the bed in unsurprisingly matching cotton underwear and bralette- same soft stomach, wide hips and deceptively tiny chest. How does she manage to look so beautiful, no matter what?

“Do you want something to wear?”

Her smirk does dangerous things to him, even more so than her tugging on one of the wide straps of his tank top. “Let’s making it even, darling.” Somehow, after all these years, she’s one of the few people who can make him blush so innocently. He pulls the shirt over his head by the collar and hands it over. It’s only slightly loose and barely covers the tops of her thighs. She lets him drag her into bed, arms around her waist, and they end up much like all those years ago: her hand on his chest, his sleep-slow hands delicately unbraiding her hair. He knows they didn’t talk about this enough. He tries not to think of the morning, of whether he’ll wake up with her in his arms or not. He conveniently ignores just how good she is at manipulating others. Elliott is very, very good at deflecting and forgiving. He knows he’s weak to being wanted, to the weight and heat of another person.

“Turn your brain off, trickster.” Loba mutters.

“Soon as you do, thief.” He rebuts, and she laughs. It vibrates against his hands spread out across her back, makes his heart pound _thrum, thrum, thrum_ in his chest, and somewhere along the way they must actually drift off. And in the morning, Loba still isn’t the first person to walk back into his life.

But she’s the first who’s stayed after they have.

**Author's Note:**

> I believe in chubby Loba supremacy.
> 
> Find me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/hikaie)


End file.
